Michael Baraz
Passionate, innovative, curious, continuous learner,
information executive leading and defining the art of the possible and aligning
strategy, capabilities, security, and privacy; leading and motivating people to
deliver successful, high value/high impact outcomes. Partners with business leaders,
driving top-line and bottom-line impacts. Combines pragmatic business acumen
with technical depth, transforming and implementing at-scale information governance,
quality, strategy and architecture, information management, advanced analytics,
and cloud platforms using proven and emerging technologies to support the organization
business strategy in banking, financial services, and insurance.
Core Competencies
|
ü Strategy and Roadmap ü Business Intelligence and Analytics ü Data Governance Programs ü Data Privacy and Security ü Cloud Security and Computing |
ü Data Quality and Profiling ü Metadata and Glossary Management ü Master Data Management ü AWS and Azure Cloud Analytics Platform ü Digital Transformation Leadership |
ü Generative AI and Agentic AI ü Agile Scrum Project Management ü Portfolio and Program Management ü Stakeholder Engagement ü Funding and Budgeting Projects |
Professional Experience
Data Office Lead September
2018 – July 2025
Automated Information Management | Chicago, IL
Established data management,
governance, and analytics organization for a specialty Property and Casualty
Insurance company. Worked directly with C-suite, VPs, directors, and functional
managers, creating the organization's data transformation program with a data strategy
and capabilities to the enterprise and business areas strategy and objectives.
Created data strategy, roadmap, architecture, processes, balanced scorecards, and
risk framework with KPIs/KRIs for governance oversight and regulatory
compliance, and recruit staff for data and AI competencies to support the
prioritized business outcomes. at targeted maturity levels and create a data
culture for making data-driven decision making. Developed scorecard to track
progress and provided weekly updates to CIO and monthly updates and quarterly
meetings with executive leadership team. Created and delivered training
sessions for senior management on essential concepts and requirements.
In nine months, designed and implemented
the Data Office operating model with a Data Enablement Executive Council and
working groups with business and technical data stewards in each business area.
Established and ran data governance policies and processes with, and
transitioned to, data stewards to build a glossary of business terms, risk
assessment, data policies security, access and entitlements, data privacy, data
profiling, data observability with AI/ML anomaly detection and data quality
rules generation, discovering “dark data,” reports certification, standardizing
metrics, data catalog, and end-to-end business and technical lineage diagrams. Implemented
Informatica ClaireGPT and Copilot for automation and scaling. Created gamified
social, crowd-sourced inquiries and contributions from business data consumers
and producers. Created data governance operations handbook. Included Data
Office review in Architecture Review Board governance. Used industry reference models,
frameworks, and standards, such as ISO 27000 and NIST 800-53, etc.
Created the requirements
definition, evaluation, negotiations, and purchase, then created and delivered training,
hands-on implementation of Informatica CDGC tools to all data consumers.
Created self-service semantic layered data and analytics architecture.
Head
of Global Finance Data Office (consultant) April 2020 – March 2023
Walgreens
Boots Alliance | Deerfield, IL
Part of the Finance
transformation executive leadership as a change agent to reorganize department using
SAP S4, SAP BW, and the Finance Analytics Platform for executive leadership
dashboards, reporting, and financial modeling, advanced analytics, and data
science on Microsoft Azure with ADLS, Power BI, and Snowflake. Created data strategy,
data governance, and quality program, executive data council, “citizen data”
stewardship, enriched business glossary, provenance/data lineage, data quality,
master data management, data classification, data privacy, data standards, data
audit, compliance, and other uses. Implemented value-based demand management
process for intake, evaluation, prioritizing, funding, and staffing initiatives.
Acquired and implemented Collibra data governance and Ataccama data quality
tools for business glossary, report catalog, metric/KPI catalog business rules,
data quality rules, data models, architecture, etc. Accelerated financial modeling,
analytics, and other data consumers time-to-value with monetization and
innovative data products, while assuring internal and regulatory compliance and
risk management as part of Business Process Improvement. Instituted data
sharing and entitlement controls. Capabilities provide $3-4M annually in cost
aversion on projects alone.
Created the Finance Data
Council with senior leadership for oversight and to align strategies, roadmap,
and execution. Led a team of 6 direct and
12 indirect reports and was responsible for business and technical data
stewardship and SME activities in areas of the Finance business area. Present
to CFO and senior Finance leaders.
Designed program to
increase time-to-insights, time-to-value, and time-to-market. Program in
partnership with FP&A and Tax to cut 30,000 hours off report production and
10,000 hours off preparation of returns, respectively, bringing more than $7M annually
in savings.
Global
Head of Data Governance and Data Quality June 2019 – February 2020
AXIS Capital | Chicago, IL
Reorganized enterprise data
governance and quality functions creating a hybrid enterprise/federated
operating model. Created data governance framework, established relationships
with line-of-business functions and created workgroups to bring value to data,
aligning and negotiating within and across LOBs and project teams. Qualified,
assessed, negotiated, and purchased Collibra as a strategic data governance
tool to define, catalog, automate processes, profile, lineage diagram, data
policies, data sharing agreements, and orchestrate group goals and execution,
for internal and external (third-party) data. Implemented performance metrics
for governance and quality functions to determine success. Created issues management
processes and tools. Created privacy management capabilities based on GDPR
regulatory requirements from Data Protection Officer to identify, catalog, and
tag sensitive data for GDPR, CCPA, et al, compliance. Created service for all
common reference data using MDM hub for publisher/subscriber distribution and
real-time web-services access; oversee prioritization by business value.
Successes of data initiatives improved efficiencies of top-level financial
operations saving 11,500 hours annually.
VP,
Head of Information Architecture and Governance April 2016 – September 2018
Gallagher
Bassett Services | Rolling
Meadows, IL
Reported to Chief Architect. Responsible
for the vision, strategy, and management of information assets, to enable
high-value data consumers and for the architecture, security, and
implementation of hybrid on-premises and multi-cloud platforms. Assure HIPAA
and GDPR privacy compliance in claims, payer, and third-party administration in
worker's compensation (healthcare), commercial and personal lines. Prepare
readiness for CCPA.
Created data governance program to
support “citizen data” stewardship, enriched business glossary, provenance/data
lineage, analytics on data usage, profiling, security and privacy, compliance,
and other uses. Responsible for proposing, securing funding, and staffing
project. This approach accelerated realization of modelers, analytics, and
other data consumers improved time-to-market. Purchased and implemented Precisely
Data 360 data governance tool.
Created cloud data strategy and led
design of a FISMA moderate cloud architecture to support a data lake from
internal and external sources on AWS using machine learning/artificial
intelligence, and text analytics. Full build-out creates a hybrid solution with
AWS, Microsoft Azure, and on-premises platforms with identity management,
single-sign on, and virtualized access services via web services and direct
access. Responsible for proposing, securing funding, and staffing project. Led multiple
vendors to implement architecture. Co-lead on building
microservice architecture to exchange data within and with trading partners.
Technology Strategy Lead (Consultant) March
2015 – March 2016
State Farm Bank | Bloomington, IL
Organized and led team of five to
create an information technology strategy initiating the Technology Strategy
Office to govern operational, compliance, analytics, and business performance
management systems in alignment with Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC)
framework and all OCC, FDIC, BCBS 239, and other regulatory and oversight
requirements. Developed a roadmap that specified implementing an application
integration hub, synchronizing customer information and their transactions
across the various banking service offerings.
Enterprise
Information Architect (Consultant) May
2014 – February 2015
Underwriters Laboratories, LLC | Northbrook, IL
Led architecture for a digital
transformation, converting engineering safety tests to a library for engineers
with guidance for new client product testing, used in recommendation engine to
develop test plans and increase turn-around to customers by 5-10 times and saving
weeks of engineering. This delighted customers by enabling them to bring
products to market more quickly and substantially decreased their costs.
Enterprise
Information Architect (Consultant) June
2012 – May
2014
JLL | Lombard, IL
Created new data governance capability. Partnered with business to
build a business glossary, data catalog, master data management (MDM), and
lineage, to allow operations teams to work across accounts teams and platforms.
Working for the Global CIO, developing strategy, gap analysis, roadmap,
business case development and investment decisions and support frequent mergers
and acquisitions. Architect and engineer of MDM and Data Integration hub
synchronizing major line-of-business and enterprise applications enabling and
optimizing Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Property and Markets with
multiple global applications. Led evaluation and implementation of Informatica
data management and governance tools.
Data
Governance Lead (Consultant) October 2011 – June 2012
BP
U.S. Pipeline and Logistics |
Naperville, IL
Developed data management program to support global enterprise and
line-of-business strategy, master data management (MDM), geospatial data, data
integration, data virtualization, metadata management, data quality and
profiling, data modeling, and data governance. Created data governance
framework, gap analysis, roadmap, business case development, investment
decisions, and support frequent mergers and acquisitions.
Data
Governance Program Lead (Consultant) February
2011 –
October 2011
Bank of the West, BNP Paribas | San Francisco, CA
Reported to Chief Risk Officer. Defined a data strategy to enable risk
management for Basel and OCC regulatory and operational management. Defined and
prioritized business needs and requirements for EDW for credit risk mapped to Basel
II compliance. Used COBIT compliance framework for Governance, Risk and
Compliance (GRC). Developed and implemented a data governance program using a
federated model, created a proof-of-concept. Led business and EDW team of 22
direct and indirect reports to put data governance around financial,
operational and derived data elements. Created a conformed semantic model based
on risk architecture and business intelligence with analytics needs.
Data
Strategy Principal August
2010 – December 2010
Maven Wave Partners LLC | Chicago, IL
Led startup of Data Governance for CIT Bank transitioning from a
commercial lending and leasing organization to a commercial bank. Developed business
glossaries, master data management (MDM) architecture Performed end-to-end
assessment of the enterprise and business units' operational and reporting
applications and data architecture to enable risk management and OCC FR Y-9C and
other regulatory reporting and compliance. Created an executive council and decentralized
governance groups, processes and tools to manage the program and assure data is
controlled in an assured accurate and timely manner.
Chief Data & Artificial Intelligence
Officer (CDAIO) Certificate, Carnegie Mellon University, Heinz College of
Information Systems (2023, 2025)
DAMA Certified Data Management
Professional, Master Level (2025)
Object Management Group
Insurance Working Group – develop/maintain industry reference models (on-going)
Informatica Intelligent Data Management
Cloud (IDMC) Certification (2025)
Informatica Cloud Data Governance &
Catalog (CDGC) Certification (2025)
Collibra Data Governance Center, multiple
certificates (Data Steward, Data Scientist, Workflow Engineer, Solution
Architect, Platform Admin, Integration Engineer, 2022-2023)
Global Business Services (GBS) 2.0
Hackett Group Accreditation Service Management Certification (2022)
AWS Well-Architected Certificate
Certified Information Security
Specialist, Data Management Institute
Certified Data Protection Specialist,
Data Management Institute
Post-Graduate Studies in Data Science,
Johns Hopkins University
Scrum Master, Scrum Alliance
Master of Business Administration (MBA), Florida International University, Miami, FL
Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA), Finance
and Management Information Systems
(majors), Computer Science (minor), Florida
International University, Miami, FL